7 comments

As a DJ I would love this service! I already subscribe to BeatJunkies for about $35 per month, and you guys would absolutely kill their business if you had a monthly subscription. I would be willing to pay even more for a Beatport sub.

No company will offer a subscription on something you actually own or can download and keep forever and least with unlimited downloads.

The first hour, someone would download the full catalogue and put it for free on the net...business ended...or if the subscription continued being available the pirates will update the catalogue with the new releases every day thinking that is an small fee for just so much music and so much power whatever the price it is, which if it's too high for being "unlimited" and the files are all around for free almost nobody will pay.

They are doing subscriptions with streaming because you can't keep anything so you can't neither distribute it and with software the trick is that the apps stop working if you stop paying because they are connected and depend heavily on the company's servers for them to work even if they are installed on your computer at home, "cloud app" means that.

Personally I don't like the subscription model that it's becoming the norm because you don't actually own anything, it's like renting and it's not cheaper in the end: you end paying a lot more than if you buy the thing in few months.

Soundeo is a file sharing site that you pay for Ainzy. Don't think any of that money goes to the artists or labels. But yeah, I still agree that the concept of paying a subscription for a certain number of downloads is a great idea!

Really necessary in my opinion; I think I've never bought on Beatport, but would instantly subscribe.

Beatport's collection is great, but paying premium prices per track isn't. Streaming-only doesn't give the freedom to add own information to tracks, so is no real alternative. Currently, samples on the website are (understandably!) too low quality to be able to really judge the quality of a track.

Business-wise, I think that unlimited downloads subscription plans would drop revenue per track, but increase total revenue.

Hi Guys... Just came across this thread while I was struggling finding reasonably priced good music all over the internet, and I think it’s rather serendipitous. Just to weigh in on the discussion - I had been DJing and producing actively until a few years ago, while I was in college. Then life happened!
I can now write a whole article evaluating the two business models (product vs. service) and how it is beneficial for both the provider and the consumer in terms of adoption, availability, and affordability (an MBA tends to overeducate you in matters like these), but I will cite an example to make my point.
After that hiatus when I now decided to come back I realized that the internet was dry. Now to give you guys the compliment you deserve, I should say that the industry has been extremely effective in plugging almost all the prolific sources of illegally downloaded music in the last 2-3 years. This is one step in the right direction. However, what also has happened that there aren't many sources left to legally purchase good music where you feel that you are getting value for money. Individual tracks might seem reasonably priced at times (some might and some not), but shopping for songs to create a DJ set for your performance takes the cost up immediately. Add to that all the new releases, and over time you realize that you are paying a fortune just to play. And then there are stems too!
To give you a first-hand account of how "subscription" should improve the revenues as well as make music more accessible to a wide variety of legit folks out there who might not be able to play music effectively due to the prohibitive costs I will take my own case. 5-10 years ago I had been using software from Microsoft as well as Adobe (which have always been insanely priced as products) which I got from friends who got those from friends who invariably downloaded these as torrents (read: pirated). Consciously it always felt wrong to do that, but money was tight (as is also the case with emerging artists, in the case of music) leaving no option.
Fast forward to 2015-2016 Microsoft Office is now available as a subscription based service, Windows 10 is more affordable (that's what I feel), and Adobe has created a platter of subscription plans to suite a variety of user needs. The first thing I did the moment I found out that Office and Adobe were available as subscription based services was to go and get recurring subscriptions (classic case of affordability driving legal adoption driving revenues). Add this on a global scale and - well you can see where I am going.
So, both in my own selfish interest and that of the larger community I would urge you to move Beatport to a subscription based model with unlimited download. I love discovering music on Spotify (again subscription based) and then go and buy it on Beatport (that seems to be the next logical step).